Sunday, August 29, 2010

Today, with a sore neck and scraggly hair, I wished I could teletransport myself to Japan. A haircut in Japan comes with a scalp, neck, and shoulder massage--a good one. You can get cheaper haircuts in the U. S., but the price for the combination was much less expensive in Japan. Japanese hairdressers weren't experienced with naturally curly hair like mine, and often asked if I had a permanent (pronounced paamu). One of my students told me my hair looked like a "macaroni" permanent, so I gave that style to Rie, the Gone With The Wind secretary (American Fuji, p.216).

Monday, August 23, 2010

Sorry for my absence between the new moon and the full moon, but I had to go back to Japan to help with the rice harvest. (I wish. Just kidding.) In the U. S., we picture farms as endless acres of crops. In Shizuoka, small rice fields grew between factories, houses, or schools. As Alex notices in American Fuji (p 170): "He passed a one-family house, a fabric store, a miniature rice field, a Mitsubishi plant, and an apartment complex. He wondered about Japanese zoning laws. Was it chaos or was he blind to whatever scheme prevailed? He thought of the measuring-instrument stores in Tokyo and Shizuoka. Japan organized itself differently. It wasn't like Europe, where a drugstore was a drugstore with a different word for it. You had to learn a whole new way of thinking. No wonder he felt so stupid here."

Here, you see sheaves of rice hung upside down to dry. If you look closely, you can see Mt. Fuji in the background tangled in the phone lines above my head.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Last night, I dreamed I had returned to Shizuoka for one year of teaching. I was walking through streets of Shizuoka, noticing what had changed and what hadn't. I wondered if I could get my former apartment back, and I realized how much easier it was to be in Shizuoka knowing what I know now. I was a little sorry to wake up.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

That's it for the Mt. Fuji/Moon Landing Extended Play special. The complete hike (through Alex's eyes) is described in Chapters 38 and 39 of American Fuji. A final note: a copy of the novel itself also made the hike to the summit! That particular book now resides with friends in Santa Cruz.

Friday, August 6, 2010

A Japanese saying--very roughly translated-- says you are a fool if you never climb Fuji once in your life, but more of a fool if you climb Fuji more than once. I wish, for my one ascent, I had not been so intent on following Japanese tradition. I missed a lot by climbing at night: too dark to see, too tired to observe. My advice would be to start early in the morning, arrive at the summit in the afternoon (when it is also far less crowded), and return well in advance of sunset so that the dark portion of the hike is the shallow, easy stretch at Level 5. Take plenty of your own water to see you through. But do bring a "tough, separate-type jacket" and postcards to mail at the top!

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

The day after the night hike of Mt. Fuji my friends and I went to the beach at Miho (sandier than Shizuoka's gravel and tetrapot, although the sand was black) and soaked our sore muscles in warm ocean water. We even found a place that served soft ice cream. Eric was happy. That day, July 21, we called ourselves the Dharma Chain Gang.

Monday, August 2, 2010

The hike ended where it began, back at the trailhead at 10:00 AM on July 20th. I was exhausted to the point of hallucinating, but I had earned my bragging rights. And, in daylight, I could now read the sign.

This is the 13th post of the official Fuji Anniversary series, but post-hike posts continue with the antidote for altitude at ground zero.

Many thanks to Eric and Veronica for taking several of these photos and letting me use them in my blog. The hon is mine.

About the Author

Sara Backer

Most Americans who move to Japan are already in love with their idea of Japan. My feelings were neutral. I had a fresh graduate degree and jobs for English majors were scarce. I was lucky to get a prestigious Visiting Professorship at a national Japanese university and I was up for adventure. I didn't know I would be the first woman and the first American to hold that job. I was in for more groundbreaking than I imagined, but while Japan's invisible expectations were stressful, my students made my job the most fulfilling one I've had. I wanted to show aspects of Japan I hadn't found in books written by men (who experience an entirely different culture), but I didn't want to add to the cliche genre of personal memoir about gaijin in Asia. Fiction was the way I could show the humor and charm of a country that seems crazy and frustrating to a Western ex-pat. This blog explains how my actual experience informed my novel. Start by buying American Fuji and visit this blog for behind-the-scenes extras.